Oh and as for the criminal investigation... 1905 - Allan Loney is charged with manslaughter in the on-ice clubbing death of Alcide Laurin . Loney claimed self-defence, and was found not guilty. [ 4 ] 1907 - Ottawa Senators players Harry Smith , Alf Smith and Charles Spittal were charged with assault after beating Montreal Wanderers players, Hod Stuart , Ernie "Moose" Johnson and Cecil Blatchford with their sticks. 1907 - Ottawa Victorias player Charles Masson is charged with manslaughter after Cornwall player Owen McCourt dies of a head wound sustained in a brawl. Masson is found not guilty on the grounds that there was no way to know which blow had killed McCourt. [ 5 ] 1922 - Sprague Cleghorn injured three Ottawa Senators players in a brawl, leading Ottawa police to offer to arrest him. 1969 - In a pre-season game held in Ottawa, Ted Green of the Boston Bruins and Wayne Maki of the St.Louis Blues engaged in a violent, stick-swinging brawl. A fractured skull and brain damage caused Green to miss the entire 1969–1970 NHL season. [ 6 ] The NHL suspended Maki for 30 days and Green for 13 games. Both men were acquitted in court. 1975 - Dan Maloney of the Detroit Red Wings was charged with assault causing bodily harm after he attacked Brian Glennie of the Toronto Maple Leafs from behind. In exchange for a no-contest plea, Maloney did community service work and was banned from playing in Toronto for two seasons. 1975 - Police charged Bruins player Dave Forbes with aggravated assault after a fight with Henry Boucha of the Minnesota North Stars. After a nine-day trial ended with a hung jury, charges against Forbes were dropped. 1976 - Philadelphia Flyers players Joe Watson , Mel Bridgman , Don Saleski and Bob "Hound" Kelly were charged with assault after using their hockey sticks as weapons in a violent playoff game between the Flyers and the Toronto Maple Leafs in which fans had been taunting the Flyers players and spitting at them. Bridgman was acquitted, but the other three Flyers were found guilty of simple assault. 1976 - Calgary Cowboys forward Rick Jodzio plead guilty to a charge of assault following a cross-check to the head of Quebec Nordiques player Marc Tardif during the World Hockey Association playoffs. The hit led to a 20-minute bench clearing brawl. [ 7 ] 1977 - Dave "Tiger" Williams of the Toronto Maple Leafs hit Pittsburgh Penguin Dennis Owchar with his stick. He was charged with assault, but acquitted. 1982 - Jimmy Mann of the Winnipeg Jets left the bench and sucker-punched Pittsburgh Penguin Paul Gardner , breaking Gardner's jaw in two places. Mann was fined $500 and given a suspended sentence in Winnipeg. 1988 - Dino Ciccarelli hit Leafs defenceman Luke Richardson with his stick. Charged and convicted of assault, he was sentenced to one day in jail and fined $1,000. 1998 - Jesse Boulerice of the Plymouth Whalers was suspended for the rest of the playoffs after violently swinging his stick at Guelph Storm forward Andrew Lang. Boulerice was charged with assault as a result of the incident. 2000 - Marty McSorley of the Boston Bruins hit Vancouver Canuck Donald Brashear in the head with his stick in the waning moments of the game, after losing a fight to Brashear earlier in the game. McSorley was convicted of assault with a weapon and given an 18-month conditional discharge. 2004 - After repeated failed attempts at instigating a fight, Todd Bertuzzi of the Vancouver Canucks sucker-punched Steve Moore of the Colorado Avalanche in the back of the head, knocking Moore unconscious. The pair then fell to the ice with Bertuzzi's weight crushing Moore face-first into the ice, followed by several players from both teams further piling onto the mêlée . Moore sustained three fractured vertebrae, a grade three concussion , vertebral ligament damage, stretching of the brachial plexus nerves, and facial lacerations. Bertuzzi was charged by police, and given a conditional discharge after pleading guilty to assault causing bodily harm. His suspension resulted in a loss of $500,000 in pay and the Canucks were fined $250,000. Bertuzzi was re-instated in 2005; Moore has not played since and made several unsuccessful attempts at civil litigation. So yeah... Hysteria...Posted by Wedgy-Dunlop

wedgy... who was the last player to be suspended for riding someone into a stanchion? i can't name one. it happens dozens of times throughout a hockey season. any suspensions...nope. the only reason its an issue is because he got hurt...which could have been avoided with a safer rink. is this area of the ice an offense only part of the rink? no defense allowed near the benches? if one player has to be responsible...so does the other.

You can see RJ line him up with the turnbuckle and at the last second follow through sending Doughty's face into the pole. Very similar to the Chara hit. Where is the outcry in MTL, Where is the Police investigation?

Maybe if you were actualy sincere about improving the game rather than just incessantly whining only when it happens to a Canadien people would take yours and other habs fans opinions seriously on this matter;

kennedy... i'm going to resort to pure logic in trying to get my point across: IF montreal had padded stanchions, THEN there would have not been a serious injury. no serious injury.... not a freak accident. there that was easy, not as complicated as people are making it out to be.Posted by adkbeesfan

Dupont actually brought up an interesting point in his article over the weekend; much of the damage may have come from hitting the ice, rather than hitting the stanchion. It would be interesting to hear the opinion of someone what actually examined Pacioretty.

Have to agree with Kennedy: the sooner this becomes less about the teams involved, and more about whether anything can be done to make this kind of injury less likely to happen, the better.

In Response to Re: Thoughts from Montreal : "Am probably done", I'll bet on the "probably"... Funny how I say things and you twist them around, and convince yourself that "being impolite" has something to do with your self proclaimed winning arguments. Bringing into the discussion aspects that you have a hard time understanding doesn't necessarily make these aspects irrelevant, or "left field". You're incredible... and kind of funny and entertaining to read, for I wouldn't be replying so frequently if it wasn't somewhat amusing. You ask me to back up things I say... and you seem to be pretty resistant to the idea that profits are linked to violence... Here, I made an effort... Variations in NHL attendance: the impact of violence, scoring, and regional rivalries - Discrimination and The NHL American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The , April, 2003 by Rodney J. Paul (Parts of the article) The scoring variables reveal an interesting result. To win games, teams obviously need to score, which means that the team record and goals are correlated figures. It appears, however; that within this sample higher scoring teams tend to have lower attendance. This is true for both the U.S. and Canadian teams. This could arise from fans preferring to see a more physical style of game (see the violence effect below) rather than a more wide-open contest. The previous season's goal total was found to be significant and negative for both U.S. and Canadian teams, while the coefficient on the goals per game variable was negative, but only significant in the U.S. sample. The fights per game for the home team, the proxy for violence, is found to be highly significant and positive across the sample. For teams in the United States it is more pronounced than for the Canadian teams, but both coefficients are large and positive. This is slightly different than the findings of Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman (1996), who studied violence a decade earlier. They found a negative impact on attendance for Canadian teams who tend to fight. Despite the NHL's efforts to minimize fighting and violence, it appears to be a very strong determinant of attendance across cities within the league. ... Conclusions The empirical results revealed that teams that fight more often tend to draw more fans. This was consistent across countries in terms of a positive influence, although the size of the coefficients reveals that this effect is magnified in the United States . Even though the NHL has tried to crack down on violence through rule changes and the league has been criticized in the media for incidents such as the Marty McSorley trial, violence still tends to draw fans to the arena . The scoring side was more surprising. It appears that for teams that have the same level of regular season and playoff success, more scoring actually decreases attendance . The coefficients on past scoring and the goals per game average were both found to be negative and significant. Although the NHL has made rule changes in recent years to increase scoring, the impact may not help team revenues. It appears that fans prefer teams that win and have tendencies toward fighting and violence, as opposed to high-scoring, low-violence teams. ____________________ So yeah... you're intellectually limited... So that's it for what you considered being me throwing you ammunitions... If you "vehemently disagree" with what I said, and backed up with evidence (which honestly, I don't think was needed), you probably didn't get what your father meant when he told you "Do as I say, not as I do.." Yeah... so you better have a solid counter-argument to disrespectfully dismiss economic factors in the league decisions to erradicate violence... If it's too hard for you to expand the discussion from the Chara-stanchion-Pachio-hysteria blah blah, keep on yappin' BS. Posted by Wedgy-Dunlop

That's good Wedgy. You brought an independant source to your argument, and I appreciate that. However, it really refers to something different than what we've been talking about. The Rodney Paul paper is really talking about "fighting", and it's 8 years old. Up to now, we haven't gone there, and I don't wish to debate the merits of fighting in the NHL, cuz I don't see any.Let me update Paul's stuff.Following are the top 16 teams in league attendance in 03.(in order)1. Montreal2. Detroit3. Philadelphia4.Toronto5. St Louis6.Dallas7. Minnesota8.Vancouver9. NY Rangers10. Colorado11. Columbus12. Los Angeles13. San Jose14. Ottawa15. Edmonton16. Tampa Bay

In 2011, which I assumed we were talking about, 6 out of 16 are no longer in the top group of 16 in attendance. Guess who leads the NHL in attendance in 2011? The Chicago Blackhawks. Seems to me they were the most recent Stanley Cup winner. and...guess what their attendance rank in 03 was? How about a dismal 24th !I may be going out on an academic limb here Wedgy, but I think attendance went up in Chicago cuz the team got better. Pittsburgh was an attendance power house in the hay days of Lemieux and Jagr, and plumeted to 25th in 03. Along come Crosby and Malkin and they're up to 5th, and currently attendance is taking a hit because both are injured.How about the Buffalo Sabres? They were a laughable 27th in league attendance in 2003, your preferred high water reference point. Now they're 11th.In 03 the poorest attendance was in Nashville. This year, fighting for a playoff spot...they're much better(21). Phoenix and Atlanta have always had poor attendance records, regardless of the violence, or the score.The worst attendance in the NHL now belongs to the New York Islanders. When they were dominating the league winning Cups, you couldn't buy a ticket. Too bad their owners weren't sharp enough to figure out all they needed to do was introduce a little more violence...and sales would go through the roof.

Now lets look at the Canadian teams. It doesn't matter if the team is violent, passive, talented, or otherwise, people buy tickets, they always have...it's religion here. Edmonton usually is around the midway point in the league, but only because of the size of it's market.

So in review, we've covered basically every teams attndance, as around 24 teams have taken their turn in the top 16, and we have perrenial bottom dwellers, and those that visit there every once in a while if they're not competitive. It's shifted a lot since 03. Are you beginning to see a trend here Wedgy? If the Canadian teams always draw well, no matter what style they play(cuz that changes as often as the line up changes), we can draw no conclusions that violence sells. In fact it's pretty much proven that all you need to do is turn on the lights, unlock the doors, and away you go.Some American teams are perrenial attendance winners. The Rangers, Detroit, Minnesota, Boston, but there are other issues Rodney Paul may have missed. You must consider the size of the rink. When Boston had the NHL's smallest rink, it would distort the numbers. Capacity is a huge issue in this excercise.

Maybe Rodney Paul was looking at data from 1970-93. I don't know. From 03 to now though, you can check the data, and it confirms 2 things.1. Some teams historically draw well regardless of how physical or violent their game is.2. In the years 2003-present, the competitivness of an NHL team seems to dictate attendance more than anything.

I mean I appreciate you coming here for the discussion and all, but you've said your opinion is totally immovable and you have failed to convince anyone here of anything that we didn't already feel about player safety...so this is destined to turn into Habs vs. Bruins nonsense. I would love for you to admit that this criminal investigation is a stupid waste of time, and you would love for us to rip into Chara, but it probably isn't gonna happen.

Let's agree on well wishes for Pacioretty's recovery and that the rivalry is still much more good than bad, eh? Cheers.

Oh and as for the criminal investigation... 1905 - Allan Loney is charged with manslaughter in the on-ice clubbing death of Alcide Laurin . Loney claimed self-defence, and was found not guilty. [ 4 ] 1907 - Ottawa Senators players Harry Smith , Alf Smith and Charles Spittal were charged with assault after beating Montreal Wanderers players, Hod Stuart , Ernie "Moose" Johnson and Cecil Blatchford with their sticks. 1907 - Ottawa Victorias player Charles Masson is charged with manslaughter after Cornwall player Owen McCourt dies of a head wound sustained in a brawl. Masson is found not guilty on the grounds that there was no way to know which blow had killed McCourt. [ 5 ] 1922 - Sprague Cleghorn injured three Ottawa Senators players in a brawl, leading Ottawa police to offer to arrest him. 1969 - In a pre-season game held in Ottawa, Ted Green of the Boston Bruins and Wayne Maki of the St.Louis Blues engaged in a violent, stick-swinging brawl. A fractured skull and brain damage caused Green to miss the entire 1969–1970 NHL season. [ 6 ] The NHL suspended Maki for 30 days and Green for 13 games. Both men were acquitted in court. 1975 - Dan Maloney of the Detroit Red Wings was charged with assault causing bodily harm after he attacked Brian Glennie of the Toronto Maple Leafs from behind. In exchange for a no-contest plea, Maloney did community service work and was banned from playing in Toronto for two seasons. 1975 - Police charged Bruins player Dave Forbes with aggravated assault after a fight with Henry Boucha of the Minnesota North Stars. After a nine-day trial ended with a hung jury, charges against Forbes were dropped. 1976 - Philadelphia Flyers players Joe Watson , Mel Bridgman , Don Saleski and Bob "Hound" Kelly were charged with assault after using their hockey sticks as weapons in a violent playoff game between the Flyers and the Toronto Maple Leafs in which fans had been taunting the Flyers players and spitting at them. Bridgman was acquitted, but the other three Flyers were found guilty of simple assault. 1976 - Calgary Cowboys forward Rick Jodzio plead guilty to a charge of assault following a cross-check to the head of Quebec Nordiques player Marc Tardif during the World Hockey Association playoffs. The hit led to a 20-minute bench clearing brawl. [ 7 ] 1977 - Dave "Tiger" Williams of the Toronto Maple Leafs hit Pittsburgh Penguin Dennis Owchar with his stick. He was charged with assault, but acquitted. 1982 - Jimmy Mann of the Winnipeg Jets left the bench and sucker-punched Pittsburgh Penguin Paul Gardner , breaking Gardner's jaw in two places. Mann was fined $500 and given a suspended sentence in Winnipeg. 1988 - Dino Ciccarelli hit Leafs defenceman Luke Richardson with his stick. Charged and convicted of assault, he was sentenced to one day in jail and fined $1,000. 1998 - Jesse Boulerice of the Plymouth Whalers was suspended for the rest of the playoffs after violently swinging his stick at Guelph Storm forward Andrew Lang. Boulerice was charged with assault as a result of the incident. 2000 - Marty McSorley of the Boston Bruins hit Vancouver Canuck Donald Brashear in the head with his stick in the waning moments of the game, after losing a fight to Brashear earlier in the game. McSorley was convicted of assault with a weapon and given an 18-month conditional discharge. 2004 - After repeated failed attempts at instigating a fight, Todd Bertuzzi of the Vancouver Canucks sucker-punched Steve Moore of the Colorado Avalanche in the back of the head, knocking Moore unconscious. The pair then fell to the ice with Bertuzzi's weight crushing Moore face-first into the ice, followed by several players from both teams further piling onto the mêlée . Moore sustained three fractured vertebrae, a grade three concussion , vertebral ligament damage, stretching of the brachial plexus nerves, and facial lacerations. Bertuzzi was charged by police, and given a conditional discharge after pleading guilty to assault causing bodily harm. His suspension resulted in a loss of $500,000 in pay and the Canucks were fined $250,000. Bertuzzi was re-instated in 2005; Moore has not played since and made several unsuccessful attempts at civil litigation. So yeah... Hysteria...Posted by Wedgy-Dunlop

Read it all and needed to summarize..

6 in brawls/sucker punches (Including an attack from behind.. I am considering a sucker punch)

8 for stick hits to the head (using the stick as a weapon)

1 cross check

Over all these charges are brought upon when intent is easily determined - using the stick as a weapon, sucker punching, or basically beating someone to a pulp. The closest was a cross check to the head 35 years go and that person plead guilty.

The NHL has already determined that they didn't witness any intent and highlighted his impeccable history. Its not like he's like Gillies.. with 2 points in 2 years and over 220 penalty mins... who goes out and basically head hunts... who was suspended for 9 games and then returned, only to get suspended again (10 games) after 4 shifts.

1905 - ice clubbing - not guilty

1907 - beating with sticks - charged assault

1907 - brawl - not guilty

1922 - brawl - arrest

1969 - stick swinging brawl - acquited

1975 - attacked from behind - no contest plea

1975 - fight - hung jury, charges dropped

1976 - hockey sticks as weapons - 1 acquitted, 3 guilty

1976 - cross check to head - plead guilty

1977 - stick hit to the head - acquitted

1982 - sucker punch - fined, suspended sentence

1988 - stick hit - charged/convicted of assault

1998 - violently swinging stick - charged with assault

2000 - hit head with stick - convicted of assault with weapon

2004 - after repeatedly trying to instigate a fight, sucker punch to the head - plead guilty of assault to cause bodily harm

In Response to Re: Thoughts from Montreal : I doubt any lawsuit will hold water. And there have been around 700 hockey games played at the Molson/Bell Centre since it opened. Now, I'm not saying "don't reconfigure" or "don't better pad the stanchion" but if this was clearly the dangerous workplace you say it is, how come this kind of issue in Montreal is rare (and until recently, nonexistent). The answer: while the stanchion can be improved, it was still a "freak accident". I know you want to point fingers at the Habs because you're a Bruins fan, but that's really more of what your point is based on than any real concern about workplace safety.Posted by Kennedy97

Past 3 posts are all dead on.

Accident as per wikiped

An accident is a specific, unpredictable, unusual and unintended external action which occurs in a particular time and place, with no apparent and deliberate cause but with marked effects. It implies a generally negative outcome which may have been avoided or prevented had circumstances leading up to the accident been recognized, and acted upon, prior to its occurrence.

Experts in the field of injury prevention avoid use of the term 'accident' to describe events that cause injury in an attempt to highlight the predictable and preventable nature of most injuries. Such incidents are viewed from the perspective of epidemiology - predictable and preventable. Preferred words are more descriptive of the event itself, rather than of its unintended nature (e.g., collision, drowning, fall, etc.) hi

Accidents of particularly common types (auto, fire, etc.) are investigated to identify how to avoid them in the future. This is sometimes called root cause analysis, but does not generally apply to accidents that cannot be deterministically predicted. A root cause of an uncommon and purely random accident may never be identified, and thus future similar accidents remain "accidental."

Accidents have been the cause of creating a better environment to play hockey in the NHL. Face masks, visored helmets, pexiglass around the ice and the protective nettings are but a few that have helped protect the players and the fans. The stanchion was meant to be a protector from accidents and in this instance the root cause analysis obviously failed, but it has also been succussfel in the past, so another analysis needs to be completed to eliminate this accident in the future. Don Cherry has showed a schematic on how to eliminate this, is it the best answer, I do not know, but the league will be looking more into this for sure.

After a bit of time has gone by and I've gotten a bit more hindsight on the issue, even I'm embarassed by the criminal charges. I can not imagine seriously contending that criminal charges are the least appropriate at this point.

Nice summarization doodles.

It is just utterly outrageous to try and draw a comparison between the Chara hit on Pac to the other incidents.

Time for someone to admit they simply got much too emotional over this.

It's been fun Reggie Dunlop(was Slapshot really your favorite movie)I'm sure we could have some great discussions about many subjects, and I thank you for this.I also want to congratulate you.Up until an hour ago, you had 44 posts here,..... you were batting 0 for 44.

Sure thing Wedgey, I'm a good fan and a good sport and we should let bygones be bygones.

It's not as if Chara's son were on probation and he drove him over to a hotel to meet his girlfriend or anything like that. Oops. Sorry, that sounds a bit too close to the Guy LaFleur thing. Of course Guy was innocent. Of course. I'm not saying he wasn't.

OK, it's not like he was a famous Habs goalie that encouraged his goalie son to nearly beat to death some other jr. goalie... sorry. that is an exaggeration and it does sound a bit too close to the Patrick Roy thing.

I am pretty sure that Carey Price has committed several criminal acts with non-consenting under age farm aminals tho. Sorry. Sorry. That was in poor taste and I didn't mean to say that. If it were possible to take those words back, I would.

I respect the Canadiens, I really do. They are a classy organizaton and would never have a cement head in their line up, and if they did he would not be from Haiti and they would not fire him 2 days after Haiti was hit by an earthquake or anything like that.

The injury suffered by Max Pac transcends the Bruins Habs rivalry, and I wish him well, I hope he recovers.

However, it is not a mutually exclusive thing that I wish the Canadiens never win another game for the rest of eternity and their fans be miserable and cry themselves to sleep each night. Not that I would wish for such a thing.

In Response to Re: Thoughts from Montreal : "Am probably done", I'll bet on the "probably"... Funny how I say things and you twist them around, and convince yourself that "being impolite" has something to do with your self proclaimed winning arguments. Bringing into the discussion aspects that you have a hard time understanding doesn't necessarily make these aspects irrelevant, or "left field". You're incredible... and kind of funny and entertaining to read, for I wouldn't be replying so frequently if it wasn't somewhat amusing. You ask me to back up things I say... and you seem to be pretty resistant to the idea that profits are linked to violence... Here, I made an effort... Variations in NHL attendance: the impact of violence, scoring, and regional rivalries - Discrimination and The NHL American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The , April, 2003 by Rodney J. Paul (Parts of the article) The scoring variables reveal an interesting result. To win games, teams obviously need to score, which means that the team record and goals are correlated figures. It appears, however; that within this sample higher scoring teams tend to have lower attendance. This is true for both the U.S. and Canadian teams. This could arise from fans preferring to see a more physical style of game (see the violence effect below) rather than a more wide-open contest. The previous season's goal total was found to be significant and negative for both U.S. and Canadian teams, while the coefficient on the goals per game variable was negative, but only significant in the U.S. sample. The fights per game for the home team, the proxy for violence, is found to be highly significant and positive across the sample. For teams in the United States it is more pronounced than for the Canadian teams, but both coefficients are large and positive. This is slightly different than the findings of Jones, Stewart, and Sunderman (1996), who studied violence a decade earlier. They found a negative impact on attendance for Canadian teams who tend to fight. Despite the NHL's efforts to minimize fighting and violence, it appears to be a very strong determinant of attendance across cities within the league. ... Conclusions The empirical results revealed that teams that fight more often tend to draw more fans. This was consistent across countries in terms of a positive influence, although the size of the coefficients reveals that this effect is magnified in the United States . Even though the NHL has tried to crack down on violence through rule changes and the league has been criticized in the media for incidents such as the Marty McSorley trial, violence still tends to draw fans to the arena . The scoring side was more surprising. It appears that for teams that have the same level of regular season and playoff success, more scoring actually decreases attendance . The coefficients on past scoring and the goals per game average were both found to be negative and significant. Although the NHL has made rule changes in recent years to increase scoring, the impact may not help team revenues. It appears that fans prefer teams that win and have tendencies toward fighting and violence, as opposed to high-scoring, low-violence teams. ____________________ So yeah... you're intellectually limited... So that's it for what you considered being me throwing you ammunitions... If you "vehemently disagree" with what I said, and backed up with evidence (which honestly, I don't think was needed), you probably didn't get what your father meant when he told you "Do as I say, not as I do.." Yeah... so you better have a solid counter-argument to disrespectfully dismiss economic factors in the league decisions to erradicate violence... If it's too hard for you to expand the discussion from the Chara-stanchion-Pachio-hysteria blah blah, keep on yappin' BS. Posted by Wedgy-Dunlop

Dr. Paul works right around the corner from me. I'll be sure to tell him his work showed up in this thread: he'll get a kick out of it.

Wedgy -I notice you posted this at 10:49 p.m.We know it is far past your bed time. So make sure you have your Canadiens pajamas on and get to sleep. We know how cranky you get if you don't get your rest and poutine.

It is bad enough that we B's fans have to deal with each other (pompous baboons, GM wannabe horses behinds who are full of themselves, over the top supporters who inaccurately predict everything, etc.) But you fans of the Montreal hockey team are not welcome or wanted here. B's fans, let us remember the type of fan's from Montreal we are dealing with here:http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=5866907

Bettman admitted to Jeremy Fillosa, off the record, that they didn't want to have pre-determined suspensions 'cause they wouldn't want to face the problem of an automatic 20 games suspension to a player like Sidney Crosby.

Bettman admitted to Jeremy Fillosa, off the record, that they didn't want to have pre-determined suspensions 'cause they wouldn't want to face the problem of an automatic 20 games suspension to a player like Sidney Crosby.Posted by Wedgy-Dunlop